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Police Stop Journalists From Photographing Metrorail System
schwit1 writes with this excerpt from Reason.com:
"Carlos Miller, who runs the Photography Is Not a Crime blog, and veteran photojournalist Stretch Leford decided to test the photography rules in Miami-Dade's metrorail system. Before embarking on their test, they obtained written assurance from Metro Safety and Security Chief Eric Muntan that there's no law against non-commercial photography on the system. The two didn't make it past the first station before they were stopped. Employees of 50 State Security, the private firm contracted to provide the metro's security, stopped the pair first. They then called in local police. The private firm and the police then threatened the two with arrest, demanded their identification (to check them against a terrorist watch list), demanded multiple times that they stop filming, and eventually 'banned' Miller and Ledford from the metro system 'for life' (though it's doubtful they had the authority to do so)."
So a private security firm AND the police have the right to try and sentence people without so much as a trial? NICE! I bet Miami-Dade PD is going to have to throw up some decent PR on this one... Oh wait, it's in the name of anti-terrorism and public safety...
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." General James Mattis
Can't be the sun - we have this problem in England.
Photography of sites is surprisingly unhelpful to terrorists. The reality is that there's usually a copy of plans for the building on the web somewhere, the photography being banned is more a matter of trying not to freak out the people that work in the building. Given the changes to technology over the years, it's pretty much inevitable that the people that are caught aren't doing anything. Since cameras are commonly small enough to not be spotted with any effort at all to conceal them.
I think The Sun is definitely part of the problem in England.
Exactly, a train can be far more massive than any airplane!
Imagine what would happen if terrorists took control of a train and flew it into a building!
It would be 911 times a hundred.
Afterall, if the pen is mightier than the sword and a picture is worth a thousand words, then a camera is a veritable weapon of mass destruction compared to a measly box cutter.
The free world isn't so free anymore... ... Because we've all been stupid enough to demand 100% safety and security from our nations (I'm European myself). Problem however is that terrorists are the perfect guerilla fighters. They are just a member of the general public, until they strike. So, the only way to work on this increased safety and security is to treat the entire population of the world as a suspect.
I'm not surprised that the world is turning out the way it is... And, there is no way that we can blame anyone but ourselves for it.
Hardly ever have I encountered anyone arguing that we could do with less security. Nobody says that it's not worth the money... But, actually, we can... Which is why I think we've all been stupid. On the other hand, demanding for less security practically brands you as a terrorist, so asking for it is not exactly smart either :-)
Don't they understand that just because there's no law against it doesn't mean that you're allowed to do it? That's exactly the kind of mistake that The Terrorists might make if they came to the Land of the Free and thought that you were allowed to actually exercise said Freedoms. See? That's why their behavior was suspicious.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The train gestapo must prevent passengers from writing down the names of the stops as well. If the terrorists ever get hold of such a list, they've won.
Living in Miami, the Metro-Fail (er, Rail), is pretty much worthless anyway. It doesn't go to the airport, or, for the matter, anywhere else useful. It's long been said, the Metro-Rail was built so the people in the Kendall area (southern point) could go up to north Miami (northern point) to buy drugs - and for the most part, I still agree (though, personally, don't do drugs). Regardless, look up WHERE the Metro in Miami goes. It's one of the worst designed rail systems in the WORLD (well, ok, L.A.'s isn't much better - another failure that somehow doesn't go to the airport).
This is far from over.
I'm glad to see that part of the article. They even presented to the security guards the very letter that granted the photographers permission, and they were still stopped. The next step is to follow-up on that letter and ask why their guards aren't following their own policies. This was a great experiment: there was no fighting, no harassing the security guards, etc. I really look forward to seeing the result. There is a part of me that hopes hundreds of photographers start going there to try and take photographs.
I don't know if this is the same outfit responsible for the Metrorail security as it was when I was working on the UM medical campus and lived in Hialeah. Most evenings when I got to the Hialeah stations the guard was in his car sleeping. I was mugged once, and on the second attempt successfully defended myself, all with no sign of the sleeping beauty in the car parked in front of the turnstiles. On one occasion, at the Martin Luther King station, in broad daylight, I was shoved aside and the young man "of color" went through the turnstile on my card. He went over to the young woman guard who was standing watching the whole incident, they did a "high five", and he went on up the stairs, while she tried to accuse me of lying about having a ticket. Actually I had a monthly pass, which very fortunately her friend hadn't noticed. Then she told me I couldn't let someone else go through on my pass! I had to threaten to call the police myself before she let me through.
But public urination is merely a nuisance. A photographer could be taking photos which might fall into the hands of terrorists. TEEEERRRRROOOORRRRRIIIISSSSSTTTTTSSSSSS!
As sad as it may be, the above is how some people really think. Anyone taking photos is potentially gathering information for bad guys. And since they might possibly be gathering information for bad guys, they need to be stopped. Information isn't free, it's dangerous and anyone collecting it (even if otherwise publicly available) is a threat to be locked up.
Also, don't pay attention to the fact that these people were likely using big DSLRs when any terrorist would likely use easier to hide point and shoots or even a camera phone. Bigger camera = more information = bigger threat, apparently.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
To be fair, look at Spain. A lot of people died on the trains. However it doesn't mean that I think law and security forces are not draconian and in short, fucking morons, for stopping these guys from photographing. They are helping the terrorists to win when they violate our freedoms.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
So far most democracies are somewhere between steps #1 and #2 most of the time. although they make more and more frequent excursions past step #2 and are always trying for their ultimate step #3 (it makes their lives so much easier).
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Isn't that how it worked in this case? They revealed a camera, and all of the sudden they were terrorized by ignorant, arrogant, bullies pretending to "serve and protect" the public welfare of our citizens. I think its quite clear these cops are acting just like domestic terrorists - and paid for with our tax dollars! Who is in charge of our country anyway? Citizens or government bankrolled thugs without a clue?
Jesus !! .. 911 TIMES A HUNDRED !! .. thats like .. 91100 !!!
Which makes it even more odd that the people who are detained always seem to be using DSLR cameras. If you use a cheap point and shoot camera, you're likely to be left alone but break out the DSLR with a big lens and you'll get security guards demanding that you delete the photos or face Homeland Security. Meanwhile any terrorist who actually wanted to use photos to plan his attack would likely use a cell phone camera or easily-hidden point and shoot camera. Or maybe he'll just have a notebook and pencil and sketch the train station while appearing to be taking notes. Yikes! We'd better ban paper & writing implements in public areas! Quick, before the terrorists use them to destroy us all!!!!!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Can't be the sun - we have this problem in England.
I don't think we have it to this extent. The summary says they were stopped in the first station -- I've tried taking photographs in stations in London, hoping to get stopped so I can bitch about it on Slashdot, but am so far unsuccessful.
(It's not surprising though -- buses, trains and the Underground are well-known "tourist attractions", so every tourist photographs them, and it's very, very rare for an idiot security person to try and intervene.)
Funny how, when we don't stop anyone, and someone flies in to the side of a building, we instantly ask "why didn't security notice and stop that dodgy looking guy?!
All he had was a camera. WTF can someone do with a camera?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Yeah, it's worse than the old days when they'd hijack a train and take it to Cuba.
Wake up lemmings.
It's normal that government has a public friendly official policy line, yet in reality has a completely different mentality.
I'm impressed with the response time. And I hope you Brits never have to go through the experience of terrorism again in your lifetime.
Ah, complex laws. They have real and imaginary parts.
Here in the Netherlands, public transport isn't public at all. Trains, busses, subways etc. are run by private companies. Its up to them to decide what they allow on their terrain and I know for a fact that making photographes isn't something they allow. Not because of terrorist threats by the way, but to protect the privacy of travellers using their service.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
I am fairly convinced that a lot of it comes from two things:
1. Deciding that a place needs more security, and hiring human security guards to provide it.
2. Choosing strategically-shaven chimps as your security guards who feel the need to assert what little authority they're given. (This is more-or-less an inevitable consequence of the fact that most security work is badly paid and intensely boring - it's not the kind of thing that will attract the sharpest tools in the box).
Authority recognises authority, and seldom undermines it. So when the chim^H^H^H^H security guards call for police backup, it's fairly common for the police to back up what they say even if it's patent nonsense. In essence, the law is decided on the fly by the security guard and by the time someone in a higher office has seen sense, it's already been splashed all over the media.
Obviously they were trying to provoke a response, which if someone is acting suspicious and literally trying to get negative response from security and police they will get one
The other side of the story (if you RTFA) is that the protagonists interviewed the head of security of the Metrorail system who assured them that what they wanted to do was allowed and legal. So are you suggesting that "legal" activities are now suspicious and that everyone should just do as they are told? No wonder you are AC.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
This is just another example of how the western world has shown just how effective terrorism is. Especially if your goal is to make your enemy into a police state and loose every human right they once had.
Free travel, the right to privacy, free speech, innocent until proven guilty all of them are on the way out. It wont happen over night but we are going there much faster than i thought people would allow.
This was the very goal of the 9/11 attacks and we have taken the bait, hook, line and sinker.
Biggest winner are China and other suppressing states that nowadays seem pretty innocent. Its very hard for other countries to demonize them when they in many regards are just as bad, compared to China they are just a lighter shade of gray.
In essense its like a criminal complaining when someone steals something from them.
HTTP/1.1 400
Oh, sorry, it looked like an RPG to me...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
All he had was a camera. WTF can someone do with a camera?
"The pen is mightier than the sword"
"A picture is worth a thousand words"
It's clear that a person with a camera is the equivalent of a thousand people with swords. We all know what happened when a legion of Rome came to town.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I always suspected you were here Hammer.
Well, Mr Clever Man, DSLRs can have big lenses on them. How can you tell whether or not its got an RPG hidden inside it without stopping them and searching their cavities? ANSWER ME THAT!
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Oh sure, trying to pay for your train journeys in a law-abiding manner is awfully bigoted.
His choice of adjectives (and quite frankly, what adjective isn't open to deliberate misinterpretation here?) had nothing to do with the causation of the incident, which was that someone wanted a free ride, and apparently did so with the tacit approval of the guard.
The fact that you are assigning bigotry to this poster despite the fact that his choice of adjective could be construed to be in order to cause the least offence reveals far more reflexive prejudice on your part than on his.
it could have been funny like this show in Australia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McB9tsabPn0
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Why should they have to try again another day? Why should they even have to ask permission -- it's public property (in the minds of most people anyway, I don't know or care who the railway and buildings technically belong to).
His choice of adjectives (and quite frankly, what adjective isn't open to deliberate misinterpretation here?) had nothing to do with the causation of the incident,
That's the whole point. The addition of "of color" added absolutely nothing to the discussion. To an American it immediately invokes "colored", and it would be fair to assume he meant the guy was black. But the real catch is why did he choose that adjective? Why not "of height" or "of great mass"? What exactly did his ambigous adjective add?
It added a tone of racism, as if the color of his skin had to do with act of the person. Let's not try to support a racist comment.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
... and the police attracts the sort of people who need to validate themselves by intimidating other people. Private security and bouncers are the same kind of people, apart from the fact that they're too shit to qualify to join the police. These people are just the same kind of pissants who would steal lunch money and give wedgies in the locker room at school. Losers who are only winners in their own minds.
You should be feeling sorry for these kinds of people. Cop/mallcop big-man-small-dick syndrome should be classified as a disease, and its sufferers should be pitied rather than be despised.
That said, as an avid photographer myself, I'd like to see a bit of clarity on what my rights and obligation are when I'm out taking pictures; lest I run into an officious pindick looking to ruin my day.
It's best to just call in the Apaches and let them clear up the RPG/camera confusion from above. It works in Iraq!
In Japan, I have traveled to every station on the Nagoya Subway, taking pictures. (3rd or 4th largest city in Japan, about 80 stations.)
I stood out, being a giant white guy, carrying what is to American police an "Evil, Terrorist-style" DSLR, with a 10-20mm lens on it.
Not a single security guard or police officer even tried to talk to me. (Actually, the only time in Japan security guards have talked to me is when I was taking pictures in a mall that had "No Photography" signs posted at all entrances)
Why are DSLRs so "Evil", when small point and shoots are just fine? Sure the picture quality might be better, but you don't need Ansel Adams quality to plan something.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Wrong - since there is nothing prohibiting their photography they should've been left alone. There is quite a bit of US law that allows public photography. There is no need for "Written permission". We already have it.
But, because of stupid fears we have more bureaucracy, and an increase of the idea of "Any behavior that isn't specifically allowed is prohibited!". The problem here is that isn't how our law actually reads. Not in America. Not yet.
Which was the point of the exercise - to highlight the fact that in actual practice we have a situation where citizens engaged in legal behavior in a public place are having that legal behavior stopped by the threat of force. Employees of this private security firm are not legally empowered to take away the rights of citizens in a public place.
After reading the article, the utter stupidity of this situation is heartbreaking. The motive here isn't to protect the train station. Nor is it to protect the citizens. Every employee of this private security firm just wants to cover their ass - to not lose a paycheck. A classic example of bureaucracy in action.
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
Second where the two photographers screwed up is they never had written permission to photograph/videotape the facility.
That's the point. They DON'T NEED PERMISSION. By default they have permission to film anything they want in public. Police, Rail stations, Nuclear power plants, etc. They just shot an e-mail off making sure that the security chief knew the law.
The principles and specific laws of the United States say they can take photographs without written permission from some bureaucrat you fucking fascist. They should get in as much trouble as they can, then sue the shit out of the City, Metro Authority and police.
Did you read the article? Did you read the post I replied to? It doesn't sound like it.
The GP said "the only way to really fix this is to go ahead and get arrested." We both realize they didn't get arrested, because we both read the article. Your "first of all" is meaningless.
"Second," the photographers did NOT screw up by not getting written permission. They asked whether photography was allowed, and were told that yes, it is. That is, they were told they didn't NEED written permission (or any other kind). The point they were making is that security and the police are being overzealous, enforcing laws and policies that don't exist. It was not to acquire pictures of the Miami metro system.
Let's start using those little bitty spy cams. Wireless, so they can't steal and destroy the evidence.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
On the "personal photography" (okay) vs. "commercial or terrorist photography" (not okay) question -- A couple years back I was taking pictures of an interesting fountain in the corridors linking a Chicago convention center with a Metra station when a cop came up and told me I couldn't take photographs of the interior of the building because "since 9/11" etc etc. I never did check to see if the city was trying to enforce such a rule, but I doubted it was her bright idea -- she was fairly apologetic about it, said she could see that I was just taking photos of the fountain, but had to ask me to stop anyway.
While we were talking, she mentioned that it would have been okay if I had been taking pictures with my girlfriend (who was standing next to me while this was going on) in them, instead of specifically photographing the architecture. I suppose that could have been this particular officer's personal guiding philosophy, but it sounded like an institutionalized rule. Apparently if you're taking posed, touristy "look at us in [place]" pictures you're not doing it for terrorist plotting purposes, and it seems fairly obvious that you're not planning to sell the photos.
tl;dr: To placate security, professional photographers should always drag along an assistant whose job is to stand around close to the shot and grin inanely at the camera.
The metrorail belongs to the government.
The government belongs to the People.
QED the metrorail belongs to the people.
In my opinion if you can see it with your eyes, then you can record it, whether it's with a camera, a sketchpad, or the neural net called the brain.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Possibly because he feels that noting (politely) the race of the person is, in fact relevant? Perhaps, in that station or in that neighborhood, there is a crime problem largely associated with a particular race?
This would not be surprising. Looking at the national crime statistics, blacks commit robbery at a per-capita rate far higher than any other ethnic group. Not mentioning this information because it is politically incorrect only makes the underlying problems harder to address.
The fact that his remark may be politically incorrect does not necessarily make it wrong or irrelevant.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Well, honestly, for easy of discussion, indicating the person was male would allow the use of male pronoun, and keep the poster from having to say 'that person' all the time. Anyone who takes issue with that would be silly.
But, yes, there was no logical reason to include the race of the person. And, FYI, say 'person of color' has become oddly acceptably recently, although I don't actually understand it, and it's somewhat weird to put "of color" in quotes like that, especially as it adds nothing to the story.
A few people have assumed the guard was the same race, and this was a story about racism, at which point it would be reasonable to mention the race...but, sadly, the poster didn't mention the race of the guard.
In fact, there's not a lot of evidence that the guard even understood what happened. If I was a guard and had a friend who was leaping turnstiles, I sure as hell wouldn't be harassing other people for it...what would be the point? 'Hello, my friend committed a crime, and I'd like to open an official investigation by accusing you, an innocent person, instead of letting him get away with it.'
It's much more likely that was happened was the guard had some sort of monitor or counter, saw that some person went through without paying, and incorrectly figured out that it was the poster. Possibly even because they knew the other person. Or, hell, they didn't, and the jumper randomly walked up and said hi to them in a bit of social engineering, so they assumed the other person was the criminal.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The Miami Police don't like having their pictures taking because it can be used as evidence against them. To them photojournalist are a threat to their authority so they are treated as enemies.
photosMy Photostream
Your getting all bothered by some rent-a-idiots didn't understand a finer point of the law that isn't covered in their Policy Manual? Get real.
I have a job, in my job I have to make decisions based upon individual situations with respect to policy. If I don't know for damn sure how the policy interracts with the situation, I ask up the chain until I find someone who does. I DO NOT just take a stab at it.
Similarly if I take the decision and I get it wrong I get an earfull about it, and if I kept making wrong decisions I would no-doubt lose my position which allows me to make decisions.
My point being that if they didn't understand the finer points of the law, they should have stepped back until they DID know. Instead, they went charging in, made the wrong decision and harmed someone as a result. That's worth being annoyed about.
FGD 135
This seems like a perfect venue for a flash crowd. Imagine hundreds of people showing up at once, snapping pictures of everything in sight. Just to liven things up, some percentage of them could just use their cell phones to text, which if held in the right position would look like they're taking pictures.
Then why did they take the hard copy of the email with them in the first place?
To test the limits of law enforcements stupidity.
Someday we might find that limit... I'm not hopeful though.
If I recall correctly, /. had a similar thread some time back and someone posted to something official that was recommended to carry with you in your camera back about having the right to photograph public places.
I've googled and can't seem to find it. Anyone?
Try googling "photographer's rights card":
http://www.billadler.net/Photographer's_Legal_Rights_Card.pdf
or
http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
No kidding. The idiot didn't even bother to think 'Hey, wait, I wonder if there are any safety things that keep propane tanks from exploding.'.
There are only two groups of terrorists that really are dangerous. The military trained ones, like the OK City bomber and the DC sniper, and non-Americans, who probably got training 'on the street', as it is, or at least belong to organizations that know how to plane.
We've never had home grown terrorist who actually had a 'good' plan to kill people, and actually did kill people, and wasn't trained by some professional group to kill people in that way. (And probably no foreign terrorist either, but that's harder to track down.)
Even going back to the left terrorism in the 60s, look at what the Weather Underground managed to do...blow themselves up. And other bomb making groups managed to take out...single offices, with maybe a few people inside them. (And, hell, you can do that with a grenade.)
And look at Eric Robert Rudolph, who did join the military, but was flunked out. Without training, he managed to...totally screw up the Olympic Park bombing, and kill only two people...one via heart attack as the entire park fled, because the idiot didn't bother to hide his bomb. With a tiny bit more knowledge of security, he could have killed at least 100 people, but he managed to flunk out of 'terrorist' also.
There is no evidence that 'amateur terrorists' pose any threat at all. You might have a greater chance to be killed by lightning than terrorists, but you probably have a greater chance being killed by lightning while winning the lottery than being killed by an amateur terrorist.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
No, the police fear being the next Johannes Mehserle. IMHO, there would not have been a trial if Mehserle had not had several cameras pointed at him when he shot Oscar Grant in the back.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!